The Heaven's Gate Cult

Welcome to my blog! This term I have been taking a class on researching. Unexpectedly, I really enjoyed the action project I was tasked with. I was able to write a research paper on a topic of my choosing. I decided to look into the Heaven's Gate Cult,  was curious on many accounts with this topic and I was able to get answers to the questions I had. Ultimately, I wanted to know how it was someone could be convinced to make that decision without being under any mind-altering substance, which I now have a much better understanding of. I hope you enjoy and are able to learn something from this as well.

The Heaven’s Gate Cult 

    Founded in 1974, the Heaven’s Gate Religious Movement was a short-lived cult that ended with 39 members dead caused by mass suicide. With the ultimate goal of “reaching the ‘Next Level,’” this group believed that they would be picked up by a UFO to get there. To define what a cult is, “a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.” The Heaven’s Gate Cult ended in tragedy, impacting the lives of many, going to show just how dangerous cults can be.

    The founding members of this cult, Mashall Applewhite and Bonnie Lu Nettles met in March of 1972, at a hospital where Nettles had been employed as a registered nurse. There, they formed a connection because of mutual “new age thinking,” Nettles convinced Applewhite that she was his soulmate. They traveled to California and Oregon and discussed their convictions that came from a Christian background. They decided that “they are the two witnesses who are foretold in the book of revelation. They are destined to be martyred” as depicted in Revelation 11:3-12. It would be known as “the Demonstration.” 

     Applewhite and Nettles embarked on their journey to find additional followers in 1972. They began posting signs around neighborhoods that prompted thinking that aligned with their own. Slowly, more people began to attend meetings of theirs and they began to grow a community of believers. They began to go by the names “Ti” instead of Nettles, and “Do” instead of Applewhite with their followers. 

    Two sociologists, Robert Blanch, and David Taylor decided to go undercover and join this group to learn more about them. From their findings, they were a very secretive group. They had no authority structure and believed in the “Human Individual-Metamorphosis” journey that would be their structure. 

     In order to join this cult, members would leave their children behind to “find what they’ve been looking for.” According to Blanch and Taylor, the Heaven’s Gate members were not under the influence of any mind-altering substances; they simply found a “home,” a place that consigned with their beliefs. These members needed to “leave their family behind” to “follow this higher calling.” 

    It didn’t take too long before the organization got bigger. Once the press got more involved and began to call them out on the “concerning beliefs,” they went into hiding. 

    After the nine-month period of holding meetings, to gain more followers, Applewhite and Nettles began an “intensive and in-depth classroom training program. Each member had to follow and strict regime with 17 rules that would prevent the members from essentially having their own thinking. Everything these members did had to be perfect in order to prove that they would be able to move to the “Next Level.” They were training in order to overcome their “humanness.” They truly believed that they were from the Next Level and lived in a human shell they referred to as their “vehicle.” They dressed in a very similar fashion to one another, very conservatively. The goal was to be “genderless,” they went as far as the adjust the pitch in their voices, not too high or too low. 

    In order to help the members disassociate from their family tree, they were given new names. They would take their birth names, shorten them to three syllables, and ad “ody” to the end. For example, someone named “Rob” would be given the name “Rbbody.” “Ody” also known as “little member” was the group's common name. Once they reached the next level, they would drop the “y” to portray that they had evolved to their final form. 

    Many of the members had concerned family members who would try to reach out with no reply. The more concerned family members would try to reach out to the government for assistance but because they were all consenting adults, there would be nothing the government could do. With the harshness that is exhibited by the rules members had to follow, those in the group did not view it as oppressive; the members enjoyed it and thought of it as fun. The struggle they went through created a sense of family with each other, it is what bound these people to this group and made it very difficult if them wanted to leave. They had created a “pseudo-identity” in a “self-sealing system,” with no clue as to what the outside world had become and nothing left to go home to. 

     In 1985, Nettles developed eye cancer that reached her liver and killed her that June. This left the group in great despair. Applewhite lost his partner and had to carry the group on his own. Ultimately, this caused cognitive dissonance, a phenomenon that occurs when one's religion or doctrine is undermined and causes a shift in their faith system. For the Heaven’s Gate movement, because their co-founder died a human death, they shifted their thinking from a physical change to a spiritual one. Applewhite believed the Nettles’ “‘Next Level’ consciousness burned up her vehicle.” The result of this group, suicide, was a direct result of the loss of their leader. 

     Now having to guide the group on his own, Applewhite becomes obsessed with controlling the members. He committed an act that would change the group's loyalties from the belief itself to the remaining leader. He asked each of his members to marry him. They would each receive a simple wedding band given by Applewhite to show their commitment to him. 

     The group went through changes with its members, some people left and some people joined. For the most part, the group had been met with rejection from the outside world. Of the members they managed to gain, they were indoctrinated when they were in a vulnerable position in their lives. 

     In 1996, the Hale-Bopp comet was visible from Earth. Some became convinced that there was a form ridding not too far behind the comet, according to the group, this would be the UFO that had come to get them. They were confident that this was what they had been looking for for years. This also coincidentally occurred around the time of Easter, a holiday that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ in Christianity. 

     At this time, the group began to focus on the “departure.” They traveled to Goldbach, Oregon, The location where Applewhite and Nettles had their “revelation.” They left a letter describing their leave as a vacation. The mass suicide “was not something they had decided on a moment’s notice they were going to do. They began the build-up in late 1996.” The group had lots of documentation of the events leading up to the suicide, including “exit interviews” trying to convince others that what they were striving for was real. The members started to mimic Applewhite, if he would begin to choke up when talking about Nettles his followers would do the same the next day, sociologists say this was a sign of brainwashing. 

     March 22, 1997, the Heaven’s Gate Suicides occurred. Three days later, the bodies were found because of a tip from a former member. The bodies were found to be lain in simple black jumpsuits with black Nike shoes on. A majority of the bodies were found with a red cloth over their bodies and $5.75 in most of their pockets. As described in a Mark Twain story, $5.75 “was the cost to ride the tail of a comet to heaven.” The cause of death was “asphyxia by plastic bag, and contributing factor was alcohol and phenobarbital.” 

    It was found that there were various times of death, “between 24-36 hours and 3 plus days.” The 39 bodies found had been split into three groups. The first group went through with it. The second group was there to clean up after the first and cover them in red cloth. The third group helped the second. Two people remained after the third group, with plastic bags over their heads and not covered with red cloth. Applewhite seemed to be in the second group of people, found alone in a king-sized bed. 

     In the weeks after the suicides, the public mocked the situation. The Heaven’s Gate members were viewed as “idiots, brainwashed, fools, and a joke.” Those who looked into the situation did not dig deep, made assumptions about the group, and asked “what is wrong with these people?” instead of looking at the influence and programming they succumbed to. The members believed that “by killing themselves, they ensured their own immortality.” 

     “'Do' was caught up in his own head and his own narcissistic beliefs,” said the sister of a member. In an interview with Nettles’ daughter, she expressed that her mother cared deeply for others and would not have let it go that far. 

     Applewhite’s influence help strong even after the mass suicide, taking members that had left the cult prior to their “ascension.” These people believed that they still had a chance to “catch up” with the other members. “In their mind, Ti and Do were the second coming. How do you tell them the second coming is wrong?” 

    In 1998, there was a Heaven’s Gate reunion, with former members, and others second-handedly involved in the group. One of those invited was Terrie Nettles, the daughter of Bonnie Lou Nettles. With her, Terrie Nettles brought letters that her mother had sent her while she was alive and with the cult. The letters addressed her daughter with endearment and encouragement to conform to society. This left the former members dumbfounded as they had been told to give up any attachment to the family they had. Here, one of their leaders had been sending these letters which went against everything she had supposedly believed. Terrie Nettles believed that her mother wanted out of the group but because she was so deep in, it would be easier to stay and die in the group rather than return to a society that would be judgemental of her choices.

     The Heaven’s Gate Suicide is currently the largest mass suicide on U.S. soil. The story teaches two lessons, to not be judgemental of others, and to be careful as to not look for easy answers. According to Steve Hassan, a cult exit counselor, “we want to think we are independent but the social science says we are programmed to fit into groups. We start adapting to the people in our environment in order to fit in.” This is, in part, why this movement was so impactful to so many people. The victims of this situation were in vulnerable positions and found a community of people who would support and help them fit in. This is why it was so difficult for people to think for themselves and find new perspectives. These victims were brainwashed and unfortunately, led to something that could have been preventable if they had not been met with hostility.

Works Cited:

Tweel, Clay. “Heaven's Gate: Cult of Cults.” Heaven's Gate: The Cult of Cults, season 1, episodes 1-4, HBO Max, 3 Dec. 2020. 

Langford, Terri. “Children of Heaven's Gate Co-Founder Struggle for Answers.” AP NEWS, Associated Press, 31 Mar. 1997, https://apnews.com/article/e0839a1f716ed2bdef1e46de97f35f43.

“Heaven's Gate Cult Members Found Dead.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 9 Feb. 2010, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/heavens-gate-cult-members-found-dead.